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🎃In Which I Write (Read Rant) About Writing

Back in late June/early July I decided I was going to write a book. I knew, kind of, what I wanted the book to be. I knew I wanted to write a romance because… well, it’s me. I knew I wanted to have a swoony love interest and I knew I wanted it to be light hearted and fun. But that was literally it.

That is all I knew.

I had no idea what this whole process was going to be like. I learned things about the writing and publishing world that I had no idea even existed.

It was a learning curve and it was hard.

Now my book is officially written and out being edited and I’m stuck in this loop of reflection. It took me four months to write this book because I gave myself a deadline of wanting to publish it in January. I want to make a donation to the rescue I foster for in the new year, before kitten season.

But it only took me three months and that is causing me some doubt all on it’s own. People work for years and years editing, rewriting, writing and perfecting their manuscripts. I don’t have that time because of a promise I made to myself. Could I make this book better? I really don’t know. I don’t know if time would make any difference to it whatsoever. To me, if I reread and rewrite something, I just end up hating it.

Think of it this way: When you were in school and writing tests. If you finished early, your teacher would tell you to look over the answers and make sure you were satisfied with them. But what happened nine times out of ten? You started second guessing everything you thought you knew and you changed things and probably got them wrong.

That was me. That is me. With everything I do. I just have to write or do the thing and that’s it, otherwise my own anxiety addled brain messes everything up.

So here we are. My book is being edited, I have the best people on stand-by as beta readers and I’m kind of lost.

I’m formatting the novel myself. It is taking every ounce of skill I learned in my college Document Formatting course. Formatting the ebook seems to be the easy part. Formatting the paperback? That’s a whole other ball game. One I’ve given up on for the time being.

I’m going to be participating in NaNo this year and most of that is going to be formatting Bring Me Home and getting everything else done. Like the acknowledgements, copyright page, title page and all that jazz.

Lucky for me, I have some of the best friends ever. Adrianna is editing my book, Skye is doing the cover, Mah is potentially formatting the paperback if I suck (LOL), and all of them plus Ann is beta reading.

On top of that, I have this YA novel that’s itching to be written. Seriously, how do authors deal with that. It’s like I want to yell at my brain “One idea at a time! Shush”, but it won’t listen. Ever.

I don’t know. I don’t even know the point of this blog post anymore. I’m probably ranting, I’m probably making no sense but my brain is just this mess of relief that it’s written, major self-doubt, and fear but also excitement, pride and love for the story that I told. I don’t know how authors handle all this, but I’m a mass of emotions.

This whole experience has been unbelievable. It’s been stressful but it’s also been absolutely amazing. I’ve spent hours staring at my laptop thinking “wtf am I doing?” but I’ve also had times where my fingers flew across the keyboard so fast that I had to go back in correct a bazillion spelling mistakes. I’ve been able to prove to myself that the rest of my life will not just be writing emails. And that’s fantastic.

Until next time,

Bree

(Also, if you’re looking for an editor, you can contact Adrianna @ adrianna15@hotmail.com)

This seems to be what the writing process is like. If it helps any, I feel so much better about my first novel now that I’ve got it back from my editor and have a plan to revise it. And if it’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that even if I think my writing is crap, someone else will love it. ❤️